Who Else But She?

by Sydney Fowler
(S Fowler Wright)

Jarrolds Publishers London
1934

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Chapter I

        Chief Inspector Pinkey was annoyed. The crime (for he was disposed to agree with the view of the local police that the possibility of suicide could be eliminated) had been committed within a few minutes of 5 p.m. on Tuesday last, and now it was 11.30 on Tuesday morning, and it was only an hour ago that the assistance of Scotland Yard had been solicited by the Chief Constable of Buckfordshire, and within ten minutes of that telephone conversation he had been in a taxi for Paddington. Now he gazed at the high banks of the railway cutting, pleasant in October sunshine, as the train pulled slowly up the Chiltern gradients, and wondered how many clues had been blurred or obliterated before he had been called in to clear up a puzzle which the local officers had been unwilling to consider beyond their powers. Well, there was nothing new in that. He knew that it was of the first importance that he should stifle his annoyance and accept it cheerfully.

        Any impatience on his part, any affectation of superiority, would make a difficult problem even harder than it must inevitably be. He must put aside all he had heard, all he had read, even all the possibilities that had engaged his mind as he had thought it over during the last few days (anticipating the possibility that he might soon be traveling in this direction), and approach it freshly. That was always the safest way. He got out at Ricksfield to change into the local train.

        The village of Beacon's Cross lies about two miles from the station of that name. Inspector Pinkey remembered reading of this distance, and hoped that he would not be obliged to walk. Probably there would be a taxi. But you could never be sure at these little country stations. And he had a rather heavy bag. It was with a real gratitude, disposing him to unusual geniality, that he found himself being greeted by a tall man of somewhat military aspect, who announced that he was Superintendent Trackfield of the County Constabulary.

        "I'm driving myself," he added, "so that we can talk freely. There aren't many places where you can be equally certain that you couldn't be overheard."

        Inspector Pinkey had a moment of wonder as to whether this local policeman really believed this to be a remark of unusual profundity. Was he anxious to show that the country constabulary are shrewder than is commonly believed in the metropolitan area?

        "Yes," he said, in a rather drier voice than he had meant it to be, "when you've looked under the seat."

        "Under the seat?" Superintendent Trackfield had a moment of surprise. Then his face cleared. "Oh yes. I see. You don't mean that too literally. You mean when you've had a good look inside. Oh yes, of course."

        By this time they were in the car.

        The two officers exchanged platitudes upon the weather and the Cotswold Hills. Inspector Pinkey was too accustomed to the delicate operation of taking over investigations from less experienced or less competent hands to feel any awkwardness, but he knew the importance of doing it in a tactful way. It was to open the subject rather than to gain information that he remarked: "I understand that the inquest has been adjourned?"

        But to Superintendent Trackfield, remembering the unadvertised reason for that adjournment, it was an unpleasant question to hear, and many would have given it a shorter answer. Chief Inspector Pinkey could observe that Trackfield might be an obtuse, but he was an honest man. He said:

        "Yes. . . . You see, I told the coroner that we were about to arrest Lady Denton, and so he agreed to adjourn sine die in the usual way. After that Sir Henry said he'd like to go over the evidence again before we committed ourselves finally, and then he said he wasn't quite satisfied, and he'd decided to call you in."

        Sir Henry Titterton was the Chief Constable of Buckfordshire.

        "The evidence against Lady Denton must have appeared fairly strong. . . . You felt satisfied of her guilt?"

        The answer came rather stiffly. "Obviously. I applied for a warrant for her arrest."

        Inspector Pinkey thought silently: "And you are still convinced of her guilt." He reminded himself again of the necessity of keeping an open mind. It might be true, as the obvious often is - but not always. What he said was: "Going by the Press photographs, she seems to be quite an attractive woman."

        The Superintendent agreed. Exceptionally. He added that she was very popular also.

        "Not the sort you would expect to be guilty of such a crime?"

        "Not in the least." Trackfield was quite frank about that. The experienced ears of the Scotland Yard officer caught a tone which suggested that, though the speaker had been resolved to arrest her, he had not been entirely insensible of the lady's charm. It was confirmed by the remark that followed, rather stolidly spoken. "But you have to go on the evidence."

        "That," Inspector Pinkey thought silently, "is an indisputable proposition, which makes it particularly important that the evidence should be considered by those who are most competent to handle it. . . ." But it was obviously not a reflection to be spoken aloud What he said was: "I was told - it was not in the Press reports - that you are able to fix the time with certainty, owing to one of your own men having heard the shot."

        Trackfield agreed again. "There is no doubt about that. But it was not one of my men. I was cycling along the lane below Bywater Grange when I heard the shot. I reached the station within five minutes, and it was then four minutes after five, as our records happen to show in a particularly conclusive way. Unfortunately the exact time is not one of the decisive elements in the case. It does no more than confirm all the evidence of those who were in the house. Indeed, you may say that the time is the one point about which there has never been any doubt."

        "Still, it's an advantage to know that we can accept that. . . . I suppose you were quite near?"

        "Yes. Out of sight, but quite close. The lane is slightly hollowed, and there's a tall hedge. On the other side, a narrow strip of paddock divides the grounds of the Grange from the road. Sir Daniel's study faced that way, looking across a rather wide lawn to a strip of flower-bed, and a background of laurels that hid the field fence from the house."

        "And you heard or saw nothing beside the shot?"

        "Nothing at all. Had I done so, I should have stopped to investigate then."

        "Yes, of course. I suppose there was nothing remarkable in the sound of a shot coming from that direction? I dare say they'd often be potting a rabbit in the grounds?"

        "No, I can't say that. I don't think Sir Daniel ever used a gun, or Mr. Gerard either. The gardener may take a shot at the birds sometimes, but I don't know." Inspector Trackfield had answered frankly, but he saw the implication of the question, which he did not like. He added: "It's just that there's so much shooting round here that we get in the habit of taking no notice. If I told our men to follow up every shot they hear, they'd be off the road half their time, and a nuisance to every neighbour I have."

        "Yes. I see." The Inspector fell silent. He thought that, whatever absurdity there might be in ordering constables to investigate every shot they heard, it was a very different proposition that their Superintendent should ride on when he heard a shot in a house near by, from which no sound should be expected to come, without investigating what it might mean. But it was a thought which should not be spoken aloud. He thought also that, if the tale told by the inmates of the house were true, there was no one (on his own account) who had been better placed than the Superintendent to have committed the crime himself. But it would be still more inexpedient to say that!

        Still, he resolved to keep an open mind on that, too. The fact that it was the Superintendent's own witness that he had heard the shot was in his favour, of course. But it might mean no more than that he thought he might have been observed as he rode away, and wished to disarm suspicion before it arose.

        He looked at the Superintendent, and decided that it was not a probable guess. Still - he had proved more improbable things before now. Suppose that the Chief Constable had had the same idea, which was why he had refused the warrant for Lady Denton's arrest? Suppose he had hesitated to accuse his own assistant, and that that was why Scotland Yard had been called in? He must just investigate whether there had been any quarrel between the Superintendent and the dead man.

        As he reflected thus, the car drew up at the police station and he went in to examine the statements which had been taken, on the particulars of which Lady Denton's arrest had been based.

        He looked up from this perusal to ask: "Does she know I have been called in?"

        "Yes. She has offered to put you up at the Grange while you are here."

        "Then I may take that as arranged?"

        "I said I would tell you when you arrived. I thought you might prefer to stay at the Station Inn."

        "Any reason for that?"

        "Only that you might feel freer to go about investigations in your own way. And if you're going to arrest a lady for murder -"

        "Yes, I see. But I don't know that I am. We're all innocent, you know, till we're found out. . . . You might tell someone to 'phone Lady Denton that I'll be there in an hour's time."

        "There's one other thing - I don't say it's a reason why you should stay at the inn, but it's just a fact you might like to know before you decide. Redwin's still there."

        "Redwin? I'm not sure I've heard his name yet How does he come in?"

        "Well, I can't say that he does. Only, he was the natural man to suspect. He'd been Sir Daniel's secretary for three years, and the only one he appeared to trust. And then he was suddenly accused of financial dishonesty, and turned out of the house. That was only a few days before Sir Daniel was shot. The tale is that there was a violent scene, and Redwin left protesting that he was an innocent man, and threatening that he'd make them sorry before he'd done.

        "He wouldn't leave the district. He put up at the Station Inn, and went to Forbes and Fisher, a firm of Ricksfield solicitors who have a branch office here, an asked them to take up the case, which they wouldn't do.

        "We've got two witnesses who heard him swear in the bar that he wouldn't leave till he'd had his rights, and that if he couldn't make Sir Daniel pay in one way, he' find another that he'd like less.

        "In fact, there was enough evidence against him to have justified detaining him on suspicion at once, but for one thing that there's no getting past - he wasn' there at the time."

        "Certain?"

        "Quite. There's the landlord himself, and two other witnesses - men who've lived here for forty years, and whose word anyone'd take. They don't love him overmuch either; but they'd all swear that he was playing billiards in the smoke-room from four o'clock till after six, and we'd been called in, and Sir Daniel an hour dead, before then."

        "That is if you can be sure that the shot you heard was the one that killed him."

        Superintendent Trackfield did not look grateful for this suggestion. It was an idea which, until that moment, had not entered his mind, and, now that it was introduced, he thought that it approached the fantastic. His experience was that the obvious was most often true. He had passed Bywater Grange at 5 p.m. and heard a shot, where shots were not usually fired. It had afterrwards been reported by various witnesses that a fatal shot had been fired at Sir Daniel Denton at the time, in the library of that house. Obviously the shot he had heard had been that from which Sir Daniel had died. It was equally obvious that those witnesses - six in all - could not all be wrong as to the time of the tragedy.

        No; he hadn't considered that contingency, and he didn't blame himself in the least. He said: "I think when you've gone further into the case, you'll agree."

        Inspector Pinkey, judging from the tone of this reply that he was on rather thin ice, became tactful again.

        "Yes. I expect I shall. . . . I don't think I'll go to the inn. The lady seems likely to be able to tell me more. You might let her know now. And when that's off our minds, perhaps you'll give me the whole story from your angle, and explain why you feel sufficiently confident of Lady Denton's guilt to justify locking her up."

        "Yes, I can soon do that. The facts are simple enough, if we agree that Lady Denton must have fired the shot. It's only if we accept her story that they become hard to explain.

        "Sir Daniel was in his study at the time. Lady Denton says that, as far as she knows, he was alone. The study has french windows, opening on to the lawn They were unbolted, if not actually standing wide. Sir Daniel's desk faces the window, and he appears to have been standing at it, having risen from his chair, but still facing the window, when the shot was fired.

        "The door was behind his back. It opens on to a passage, which has the drawing-room door almost opposite. Lady Denton says that she was in the drawingroom when she heard the shot and the sound of Sir Daniel's fall - that was quite possible, he's a heavy man - and ran into the room. She says she saw him on the floor, bleeding from the head, and screamed for help.

        "Sir Daniel's half-brother, Gerard, who lives with them, was in the library, the door of which is further along the passage. He says he didn't hear the shot or the fall - which is possible, too, for the library has a heavy, close-fitting door, and its windows are on the further side of the house - but he heard Lady Denton's scream, and ran to her.

        "Lady Denton confirms this. She says he was with her almost at once.

        "Mr. Gerard says that he went out on to the lawn to see if anyone was in sight. He cannot remember whether the windows were open, but, if not, they opened at a touch. He found the gardener's boy on the path, within sight of the window. He questioned him, and was told that no one had entered or left by that window for an hour or more previously, during which time the boy had been weeding the path.

        "The head gardener was working at the side of the path, somewhat further away, and out of sight of the window, owing to the curve of the drive. He is deaf, and heard nothing.

        "The boy says he heard the shot, and started to run to the window to see what it was, but the gardener called him back and told him to get on with his work.

        "The gardener confirms this. He says that, being deaf, he heard nothing, but he was keeping a watchful eye on the boy, whom he charges with a habit of slipping round the house to talk with the kitchen-maid more frequently than he approves. He agrees that the boy resumed his work when he called him back, and they both say it was not more than three or four minutes after that Mr. Gerard came out."

        "Anyone else in the house?"

        "No one except the servants. There are a cook, a house-parlour-maid, and the kitchen-maid I mentioned before. They appear to have been about the kitchen or pantries at this time, within hearing and practically within sight of each other. Even if there were any reason to suspect any one of them of such a crime, they each have alibis from the other two. There was no one else in the house at the time."

        "That is, so far as we know yet."

        "Yes, of course. It didn't seem necessary to say that."

        Inspector Pinkey realized that he had been tactless again. "Beg pardon," he said, "I didn't mean it the wrong way. I don't think I've often heard a statement so clearly put. What about the weapon?"

        "It was a rather old-fashioned revolver, which belonged to Sir Daniel, and which, if we're told the truth now, he used to keep very carelessly in an unlocked drawer of his desk."

        "Lady Denton says that?"

        "Yes. And Mr. Gerard."

        "Well, they ought to know. No possible doubt that the bullet came from that gun?"

        "Practically none. I ought to tell you that it's one of a pair, of which Mr. Gerard had the other. He told me about it quite frankly, and turned it up from the bottom of an old trunk. He said he hadn't fired it or had it out for years, which its appearance confirmed."

        "How do we know that he didn't own both?"

        "We've Lady Denton's statement as well as his."

        "Yes. I see. Couldn't it have been possible for this Mr. Gerard to have run back to the library after firing the shot, and then come back when Lady Denton screamed?"

        "We've her own evidence again against that. She says there wouldn't have been possible time. She says she went instantly when she heard the shot."

        "Then it comes to this, that it was suicide, or she's shielding her half-brother-in-law, or else she did it herself, as you think she did."

        "Yes. But she wouldn't shield him. I shouldn't say that they're on good enough terms for that. Not if she found she might be going to hang for him, anyway."

        "And, if you'd arrested her, it might have led up to the truth, even if she didn't do it herself? Well, I wouldn't say you were wrong, if you thought that - But what does she say herself? Doesn't she put forward any explanation at all?"

        "She says he must have done it himself."

        "And Sir Lionel Tipshift didn't agree?"

        "No. We've got his report here."

        "Yes. I've seen a copy of that. But it'll bear reading again."

        Inspector Pinkey took up the report of the eminent Government expert, and read it as carefully as though he saw it for the first time. But he had finished it for some moments before he lifted his eyes from the paper and spoke again. He was silently reviewing the tale he had heard in a very experienced mind, and was inclining toward agreement with Superintendent Trackfield's conclusion. He thought it likely that Lady Denton's remaining hours of freedom would not be many. Bu he would see for himself, and resolutely keep an open mind until then. He mustn't even forget his theory that the Superintendent might have done it himself!

Chapter II.

        Inspector Pinkey laid down the report. He had read that the bullet had entered under, and a little behind, the left ear, and had penetrated the brain in an upward and somewhat forward position. Sir Lionel Tipshift advised that it was possible - barely possible - for the wound to have been self-inflicted, if the weapon had been held in the right hand, passed under the left arm, and pointed upward. Possible - but absurd. He expressed a decided opinion that the shot had been fired by someone who had stood at the side of, but slightly behind, the murdered man. He thought it probable that this person had been considerably shorter than Sir Daniel. The muzzle of the weapon had not been less than two feet away from the spot where the bullet had entered. Probably rather more. Death must have been instantaneous.

        "Was Sir Daniel," he asked, "a tall man?"

        "Yes, unusually so. Lady Denton is rather the other way."

        He knew that it was no more than he had expected to hear, and had to remind himself again of his resolution to remain unprejudiced until he had seen with his own eyes rather than through those of another man. Yet the inferences were obvious, and all pointed a single way. Someone known to Sir Daniel, who could approach him without suspicion. Who might stand beside him without causing him to turn. Who knew where the pistol was kept. Lady Denton fulfilled all these conditions. She might be the only one who would be admitted on that footing to her husband's study. And she was first on the scene: was there within a moment of the shot being fired, with only her own word of denial that she had not been there all the time. Yes, he was fair-minded enough to recognize that there had been justification for the decision to arrest her on the capital charge. But he would not say that, as yet. He would see her first.

        "There's one question," he said, "we haven't discussed yet. I mean motive. Motive isn't proof, and it's always dangerous to build on it alone. But it often saves a lot of trouble in pointing the right way for a second look. Anyone else round here with a grudge against the dead man?"

        "It's not easy to answer that. He wasn't popular. There must be a score of neighbours who weren't sorry to hear the news. But there's a wide gap between that and a motive strong enough to lead to a crime of this kind. And there's some negative evidence on the other side. He doesn't seem to have been living any kind of a double life, nor even had any correspondence that he kept to himself. He was very careless about locking his drawers. He doesn't seem to have been blackmailed in any way. His wife can explain every payment his pass-book shows."

        "And negatively, as you say, that all seems to narrow it down to herself, even apart from the fact that you can't see how anyone else could have left the room without being seen by her or the boy. . . . What about a motive for her?"

        "It's much the same inside the house as out. He wasn't much loved, and I don't suppose anyone's really sorry he's dead. But the motives don't seem strong enough.

        "As to Lady Denton, everyone knows he used to bully her, and, as a rule, she'd give way. Now and then she stood out, and they had a real row. They'd had one a few days before. She was quite frank about that. But on the whole they got on about as well as most couples do. He doesn't seem to have given her any occasion for jealousy, nor she him."

        "What was the row about? Did she say that?"

        "Yes. It illustrates the kind of man that he was. She says he went into the kitchen to countermand some instructions she had given, and said something that annoyed the cook, who appears to be the sort of woman who thinks the kitchen belongs to her. Anyway, she used her tongue at him, and he lost her temper with her, and in the end she told him to clear out of the kitchen, or she'd lay a broomstick across his back.

        "After that, he told his wife to dismiss the woman, which isn't surprising; but, for once, Lady Denton stood up to him, and declined. She told him that good cooks weren't easy to get, and he should leave the servants to her. They had a row over that, in which she got a bruised arm. She told me all this herself, and I had the cook's version as well. She doesn't profess to have much grief for his death, but she says, if he didn't shoot himself, she knows nothing about it, and can't suggest who did."

        "Does she benefit by his death?"

        "She gets control of some money which was in his hands before. Nothing beyond that."

        "Is she in debt?"

        "No. She tells me she has more money of her own than she has occasion to spend."

        "How about the half-brother? Any motive there?"

        "yes. But again, it seems weak. Sir Daniel was sole executor under their father's will. He had control of funds which have been left for his brother's benefit, but so that, while he lived, he dole them out as he would. It is said that he used this power in vexatious ways, and Mr. Gerard must be very glad that it's ended now.

        "But, as a motive for murder - and one that appears to have been treacherously done, rather than in any excitement of quarrel - it seems a bit thin. And Gerald isn't the sort, to my mind, to take the risk of hanging without far more motive than that. He's too fond of his own comfort. He wouldn't risk being taken anywhere where he couldn't have breakfast in bed."

        "Well, I expect you're right. You know the people, and I don't. But it comes to this - that you've discovered a certain amount of possible motive, and there may be more behind with one or other of them that we mayn't even guess yet. But I can see that I'm going to the right place. . . . Which reminds me that, if I'm to be there within an hour of when you rang up, it must be about time to move. . . . By the way, aren't there any finger-marks on the gun?"

        "Yes. Lady Denton's. There's an explanation of that, as she says she lifted it off the floor where it had fallen, and laid it on the desk. The constable who was called first confirms that it was lying there when he arrived. But if there are any marks besides hers, and one that's certainly Sir Daniel's, they're too blurred to recognize. So it's against her as far as it goes."

        "Yes. Rather heavily. There must have been ample time for her or the half-brother to wipe it clean, but she wouldn't wipe anyone else's marks off and then handle it again herself."

        "No. If the murderer had escaped before she entered the room, he might have done so in theory, but that wouldn't have taken time, which, by her tale, he couldn't have had."

        "So, unless it was suicide, it points straight to her."

        Inspector Pinkey rose as he spoke, and was soon in the Superintendent's car again, on the way to Bywater Grange.

Chapter III.

        Inspector Pinkey had shown already that he was a tactful man. He was given a fresh opportunity of demonstrating this when he was met by Mr. Gerard Denton with the news that Lady Denton had retired early, being unwell. Mr. Gerard was, perhaps, rather more apologetic than the occasion required. He alluded vaguely to yesterday's funeral. He said that Lady Denton had had rather a worrying time, which cannot be considered an over-emphatic description of the experience through which she had passed. He said that she hoped to meet the Inspector at breakfast on the following morning.

        Having said this, he introduced his guest to a well-stocked library, and excused himself rather hastily, saying that dinner would be at seven-thirty. Inspector Pinkey decided that he was not eager to talk.

        He had resolved to ask Lady Denton's permission before questioning the household staff, whether in or out. He had not anticipated that this would cause any delay, and it would be a curtesy which would cost him nothing, as it could not be refused. He now decided that another day would make no difference, in view of the time which had passed already, and he would leave everything (except, perhaps, Mr. Gerard) till the next day.

        Gerard sat opposite to him at dinner, with Lady Denton's empty place at the table-head between them. The difference between brothers is sometimes very wide, and it is reasonable that that which separates half-brothers may be wider still. Sir Daniel had been a man of height and substance and an overbearing manner. Gerard was undersized, furtive, ingratiating. There is a type of woman who would have called him handsome, and he had the veneer of a gentleman.

        He maintained a sufficient conversation on indifferent topics until Pauline, the pleasant, soft-voiced parlour-maid who waited upon them, had withdrawn from the room, and then, somewhat to the Inspector's surprise, he brought up the subject of his brother's death and discussed, with an apparent frankness, the problem which it presented.

        He gave an account of his own experience which agreed substantially with that which the Inspector had heard already. He had been reading in the library and had not heard the shot, or, at least, not sufficiently distinctly to guess what it was. The doors of Bywater Grange were thick and well fitted. He doubted whether he would have been sufficiently disturbed or curious to enquire the cause, but that he had been roused the next moment by an agonized scream from Lady Denton - "Gerard! Gerard!" - and had run at once to her aid.

        He told this tale clearly enough, though with some agitation of manner, and perhaps a little over-assertion, which might be natural under the circumstances. Supported as it was by Lady Denton's account, it seemed to remove suspicion from him, and concentrated it the more surely upon herself. He was evidently conscious of this, and showed some anxiety to assert her innocence. He dwelt on the note of surprise and horror which he had heard in her first scream. He admitted that he did not see how anyone could have escaped by the study door along the passage after the shot was fired without being seen either by her or him.

        That being so, he inclined to the opinion that his brother had taken his own life. For what other explanation could there be?

        He put forward the ingenious theory that Sir Daniel might have deliberately endeavoured to shoot himself in such a way that it would not appear to be his own act.

        The Inspector agreed as to the possibility; but asked, why should he do that?

        Gerard suggested spite against some individual (unspecified), or the household generally. No one who knew his brother would consider it an unlikely action.

        The Inspector was not impressed by this argument. He could see no reason, at present, why Sir Daniel should commit suicide at all. But he observed that Gerard did not exhibit any regret at his brother's death, or anxiety that the murderer (if any) should be secured. If he were giving a true account, the evidence in his mind against his sister-in-law must be almost conclusively strong, for what was no more than unproved assertion to the Inspector must be certain knowledge to him. Yet it did not appear to have influenced him against her, whether because his appreciation of her character was sufficient to assert her innocence against any weight of adverse evidence, or that his feeling toward his brother were such that he did not care whether she had shot him or not.

        The Inspector led the conversation in the direction of the ex-secretary, and learned that, in Gerard's opinion, there was little, if anything, too base or criminal for Mr. Redwin to attempt: no fate too dreadful to be deserved. It was evident that responsibility for Sir Daniel's death would be very gladly laid at his door. But he appeared to recognize, with whatever reluctance, that it would be difficult to establish the charge against a man who was playing billiards two miles away.

        Dinner being over, Inspector Pinkey excused himself, and went early to bed. He was a busy man, and accustomed to take sleep when he could get it. He had leisure to give some quiet consideration to Mr. Gerard Denton, who was of a type for which he had an instinctive antipathy, but he recognized that that was no evidence that he was responsible for Sir Daniel's end.

        At present, on his own evidence, and that of Lady Denton, he was in an impregnable position; and this was supported by that of the gardener's boy, which eliminated the possibility that he might have left by the window, and returned to the library round the outside of the house. But could the Inspector accept this as final, and dismiss him from consideration? He was less inclined to do this owing to an idea which had come to him in explanation of the marks on the pistol, during the conversation at the police-station, but which he had kept to his own mind. Suppose that Gerard Denton had used the weapon with a handkerchief or a gloved hand; or suppose, during the first moments of Lady Denton's agitation, that he had found an opportunity to wipe it, unseen by her; and had then suggested that it should be picked up, so that her fingermarks should show upon it?

        It was an improbable, but not impossible, explanation, and eliminated any question of the time necessary to clean it before the very hurried escape which he must have made.

        It suggested that he was willing to throw the blame upon her, which his conversation did not confirm; but that might be no more than evidence of his own cunning. He might see that suspicion must ultimately settle upon her without any support from him, and the evidence that he would be prepared to give would be more damning if it seemed to come from reluctant lips. . . . Or he might wish her no evil at all, providing only that there were enough suspicion against her to divert the lightning from his own head.

        Ruminating over these possibilities, he was led to observe that it did not logically follow that, if Lady Denton had picked up the revolver, her brother-in-law had suggested the act; nor that, if it had been previously used in a covered hand, it was he who had worn the glove. He reminded himself of what an older officer had once said to him when he was busy with his first important case, and he had made report of various ingenious theories which he had constructed to explain a somewhat mysterious crime. "Son," he had said, "I can see you're a smart lad; but what I want to know is who killed Ben Jacobson, and one fact's worth a hundred theories for that."

        One fact, as he had often observed since, was worth a hundred theories. And if facts should seem inconsistent or incomplete, the only remedy was to go on searching for more. So far, they all pointed one way.

        But there remained the question of Gerard's character. That was not theory but fact, though it might be a fact which he did not completely know. Now he had seen the man, could he definitely eliminate him from the list of possible suspects?

        He remembered Superintendent Trackfield's judgment that he was not a man who would risk his own life or liberty - and particularly not in a crime which must, if he committed it, have been deliberately and coldly planned - without a far more urgent motive than could be suggested against him.

        "Well," he thought, "I should say that Trackfield was right about that." He even went further, to doubt whether any stress of difficulty would stimulate him to such a crime. He was rather, he thought, of the type of those who, in the extremity of disaster, will find courage to destroy themselves rather than to commit violence against those they may hate or fear. "And that," he thought, "would be his way out now, if he had done it, and thought discovery near."

        All of which might be true, but it did not appear to approach the facts he already had. There was no evidence that Gerard had been threatened by any extremity of disaster, or had any reason to hate or fear his half-brother, adequate to stir him to the commission of such a crime.

        "Well," he thought at last, "I must see Lady Denton. There may be no more in it than the reluctance which we frequently find among the local police of country districts to arrest those of good social position, unless they've got about ten times as much evidence as they'd think necessary to convict a shopman. I dare say, when I've talk to her for five minutes, I shan't need to look further away."

        And with this thought in his mind he succumbed to the oblivion of a particularly comfortable bed.

Chapter IV

        Inspector Pinkey sat at breakfast with Lady Denton. They were alone. Mr. Gerard was understood to be having his breakfast in bed.

        Lady Denton, after some preliminary courtesies, referred at once to the subject of her husband's death. "It is not," she said, "as you will suppose, a pleasant subject for me. It is one I would very gladly forget. But I understand why you are here, and if there's anything you would like to ask me, I hope you won't hesitate, whatever it is, if you think it might help to clear up the mystery."

        "May I ask your own opinion, if you have formed one, Lady Denton?"

        She paused before she replied, and then said: "I can't say that I've got one definitely. I didn't think he'd have done such a thing, and then I heard Sir Lionel's evidence that it wouldn't have been easy to do; and yet it seems the only solution."

        She looked straightly at the Inspector as she said this. She had very beautiful eyes. She was a woman of fragile appearance, but with small firm lips and a rounded but resolute chin. Not one, he thought, who would have been bullied very easily, even by such as the dead man was said to have been. She added: "I know everyone's discussing whether I did it myself, and I half thought Inspector Trackfield meant to have me arrested before I heard you were coming. But you see I happen to know that I didn't. So in that way I'm in a better position to judge than anyone else, and if I'm more inclined to think it was suicide, it may be a natural consequence."

        Inspector Pinkey felt an awkwardness to which he was unaccustomed as his hostess expressed so plainly the suspicion which she knew to be directed upon her. He said: "Well, you see, in these cases we have to begin by suspecting everybody. You can't really blame him for that. There was one other question I thought I should like to ask you. Did you know - I mean, was it generally known that the revolver was kept in the desk drawer?'

        "Yes, I knew that. Others may have done. I can't say for sure. I expect Mr. Redwin did, as he had charge of Sir Daniel's correspondence, and kept his drawers straight."

        "Mr. Gerard?"

        "Yes. I expect he would. . . . You see, they both had revolvers of the same pattern, but of course you know that. . . . I mean, he knew that Sir Daniel had it, but I can't say whether he knew where it was kept."

        "Yes, so I had been told. . . . Do you know whether Sir Daniel was in the habit of keeping it loaded? In an unlocked drawer?"

        "I don't really know. . . . I shouldn't have thought it was loaded. . . . I don't think he'd have been so careless. . . . He might leave any of his drawers unlocked. He was very careless about that."

        "And there was a box of cartridges in the same drawer?"

        "There was a box of something at the back of the drawer. I don't really know more than that. I never thought about it particularly. No doubt that's what it was."

        Inspector Pinkey had an interval of silence. He gave some attention to his breakfast. It was really excellent bacon. He also considered the answers that he had just received. If they were true - and they appeared to be readily and frankly given - he could eliminate her from the enquiry. What remained? Suicide or Gerard Denton? Neither proposition could easily be reconciled with the facts as he knew them. He said:

        "In accepting a theory of suicide in a doubtful case such as this, it may be of great assistance if we can discover a motive - even one which may seem inadequate to a normal person. It is one of our difficulties that we can discover none here. Sir Daniel was in good health. We have the evidence of the post-mortem and of his own doctor, which you can probably confirm."

        "Yes," she said, "he used to fuss over himself at times, but I never knew him really ill for a day."

        "So I understand, and he appears to have had no financial troubles. Blackmail, or some other complication of double living, explains some cases, but we can learn of nothing of the kind here. His carelessness regarding keys, of which you have just told me, is consistent with the absence of such worries. I understand that his papers have disclosed nothing. His bank

account has no unexplained debits. . . . Only domestic unhappiness remains as a possible explanation of self-destruction. If you could tell me that there was such unhappiness, it might supply the motive for which we are seeking, though there would still be the difficulty of the shot coming from behind."

        It was subtly if not unfairly put. She may or may not have seen that an affirmative answer might be held to inculpate herself as much as it would support a theory of suicide, but she showed no sign of resentment, neither did she reply. She took up his last point only.

        "Sir Lionel Tipshift considers it possible, as I have understood?"

        "Yes, possible, and no more. . . . But still, a motive of any kind. . . ."

        She was silent, and then said deliberately: "It is a matter which I would rather not discuss, even with you Inspector Trackfield has led me already to say more than I meant or should. . . . He is dead now, and if there was a little trouble between us at times - it was never much - I only wish to forget."

        He recognized that she meant what she said, and that he could not press it further at that time. Indeed, her refusal to reply was admission enough. Not that he really believed in suicide. He thought it absurd. He said quickly: "How about his brother? Was he on good terms with him?"

        "No. Nobody was."

        "You mean, no one was on good terms with your husband?"

        "Yes. It wasn't easy."

        "Well," he said, as Lady Denton rose from the table, "motive or no motive, it looks as though it's suicide that it's got to be. . . . I may have to go back this afternoon. . . . I'll just have a stroll round before I go."

        "I've told the servants to give you any information they can, and to do anything you ask. . . . I mayn't, see you again if you're going back as soon as that." She shook hands with a slight but sufficient cordiality, and as she left the room Gerard Denton came in, and when he saw Inspector Pinkey he did not look pleased.

        He had come down in the complacent hope that he had allowed sufficient time for that infernal red-headed policeman to clear out. He couldn't think why Adelaide had allowed him to come to the house at all. Surely there were barracks for such as he! He tried with indifferent success, at this second encounter, to look the affability which he did not feel, but his ordeal was not prolonged. The Inspector had talked to him last night, and was not a man to waste words. Now he returned nervous civilities with others which were more self-confident, but equally insincere.

        Then he went out, as he had told Lady Denton that he had intended to do.

Chapter V

        Inspector Pinkey, working upwards, which experience had taught him to be the more profitable direction in which to dredge for the gold of truth in the channels of muddles, errors and lies beneath which he was accustomed to find it so deeply buried, commenced with the gardener's boy.

        He was one slow of words, but of a perpetual grin. His lack of fluency was further impeded by the fact that, when Inspector Pinkey interviewed him, he was sucking a very large sweet. He said that he had heard the shot, and had commenced to run to the window in the anticipation - perhaps hope would not be an unfair word - that "somethin' was up". He had been called back by Mr. Bulger, and had reluctantly continued weeding until Mr. Gerard had appeared from the window and questioned him as to having seen anyone come out previously. Had he done so? No - no one. Except, of course, Mr. Gerard. How long after the shot was fired? Quite a time. Five minutes? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps not. Quite a time. Mr. Gerard had come straight to him to know whether he had seen anything. Then he had gone on to question Mr. Bulger.

        This was the tale he had told before. There seemed no reason to doubt it, nor to hope that further questions would lead to any additional discovery.

        The Inspector, determined that no possibility should be overlooked, found some difficulty in considering him as a candidate for the position of murderer. A boy's prank? Suppose he had discovered the weapon, so carelessly left in that unlocked drawer, during some lawless exploration of the vacant study?

        Suppose he had hidden when Sir Daniel entered, and shot him from behind? He was short enough to have to fire upward at Sir Daniel's head. Suppose he had only meant to frighten him, firing up into the air? Suppose. . . . The Inspector reminded himself again of the relative importance of fact and theory; and these theories approached the absurd.

        The character given to Sir Daniel did not suggest that his gardener's boy would be likely to play jokes with revolvers behind his ear. The Inspector looked at the cheerful vacuous face, with its working jaws, as the sweet came back from the cheek in which it had been deposited for the exigencies of conversation, and the idea that he had deliberately shot Sir Daniel seemed too fantastic for further consideration. Still, if Lady Denton be put aside, he had been nearest to the scene of the tragedy. It was an explanation at least physically possible.

        The Inspector's trained keenness of observation was inclined to perceive a suggestion of nervousness behind the obtuse screen of that perpetual grin. He knew that the country man or woman, with an appearance of slow stupidity, can often conceal thought or emotion far more successfully than his less stolid brother of the town. The boy had a reputation for slipping away from his work. He must have his own ideas, his own dreams of evil or good, through the long slow hours in which he pulled weeds from the garden path.

        "Now, Tommy," he said, "tell me this. Did you run round to the kitchen, or go away for anything else just for a few minutes, so that anyone could have gone in at the study window, or gone out, without you seeing him, when Sir Daniel was shot? . . . If you did that you needn't be afraid that you'll be blamed by Bulger or anyone else if you tell the truth, and you may save a lot of trouble all round."

        The boy looked at him for a few seconds before replying, and the Inspector had an uneasy doubt that he was considering the expediency rather than the truth of the admission that he had been invited to make.

        It would be of little assistance to the solution of the problem if the boy should make a false statement that he had left the drive, under the impression that he would be pleasing those in authority, or from whom his employment came.

        But the Inspector was spared the embarrassment of that doubt, for, after his pause of silence, the boy shook his head in denial.

        "How," he asked, "could I 'a done that, with Mr. Bulger alookin' on all the time? You can arst him, if you like." And then, with a burst of convincing logic: "How could I 'a' heard the bang, if I warn't here?"

        Inspector Pinkey recognized his defeat, and strolled on to interview the gardener, a rheumatic ancient, who received him in the steaming heat of the cucumber-house, and appeared quite willing to converse on any subject, comparatively indifferent to the fact that his deafness frequently resulted in his remarks having little relation to those which were addressed to him.

        However, by tact and patience, the Inspector finally obtained, in addition to some information respecting the domestic habits of cucumbers, and Mr. Bulger's opinion of Hitler (which was not high), the information he sought.

        It appeared that the gardener had been trimming the sides of the drive, working toward the house, and therefore in Tommy's direction. He had kept a vigilant eye upon him, having too many previous experiences of his errant temperament to be careless in that respect.

        His deafness did not prevent him from perceiving very quickly the implication of the Inspector's curiosity, which he appeared to regard as of a highly humorous complexion. He chuckled long over the idea of Tommy venturing into the study to make an end of his employer. "You be the fair limit, you Lunnon chaps," he said, in appreciation of so good a jest, and long afterwards, when the somewhat discomfited Inspector had endeavoured to lead the conversation in other directions, he broke into a new cackle of laughter, and remarked as though confidentially to the cucumber he was tending: "They be the limit, they be."

        The Inspector left at last, having obtained Mr. Bulger's opinion (for what it was worth) that, if Tommy had succeeded in leaving his post, his objective would have been the kitchen, not the study, and that his desire had not been for his employer's conversation, but for that of Mabel, the kitchen-maid, who was, to Tommy at least, a more attractive member of the community. But Mr. Bulger was emphatic that he had gone nowhere at all. The only time that he had shown symptoms of flight, Mr. Bulger had called him back, and that occasion had been shortly followed by Mr. Gerard's appearance, and was evidently that on which his curiosity had been roused by the sound of the fatal shot.

        Mr. Bulger also expressed a decided opinion (which the Inspector was to find general throughout the domestic staff) that Sir Daniel had shot himself, in doing which he had shown a sound idea of his own value. Mr. Bulger pointed out that this was one of the points in which man was superior to the animal, and still more to the vegetable kingdom, there being fruit-trees of indifferent bearing which Lady Denton was unwilling to condemn to the axe, of which there was too little hope that they would make an end of themselves in the same way.

        The Inspector was also informed, in the course of a long metaphor of considerable complexity but unmistakable meaning, that it is meritorious to stir the soil either for the insertion of a seed-potato or the removal of the resulting crop, but that the disturbance of dirt when you have nothing useful to sow, or profitable to reap, may be a less pardonable activity.

        It was a reflection which came at times to his own mind, as it must come to all but the most obtuse of those who minister to the blind and cruel impartiality of the law. He was aware of the conventional, and perhaps sufficient, reply; but he knew that it is difficult to state it briefly in convincing words, and - to a deaf man - he let the case go by default, and walked round to the kitchen to see what, if anything, might be learned there.

        It is no mean tribute to his tact and adroitness that he was able to overcome the latent hostility with which his investigation was regarded - doubtless in their mistress's interest - by the domestic staff. By these qualities, patiently exercised, he was able to obtain a willing repetition of tales which had been fully told more than once before, and it was no one's fault that they did no more than confirm the narrative and conclusions which he had had from Superintendent Trackfield on the previous day.

        If the servants had any doubt of how Sir Daniel had died, it was evident that it was one that they were not disposed to develop, even in their own minds; nor was their loyalty to their mistress shaken thereby. Sir Daniel, their answers assumed, if they did not assert, had died by his own hand, and if the cook did not actually add "and a good thing too", it was evident that she would have assented willingly to that proposition. Yet the Inspector had no difficulty in eliminating her as an alternative to the supposition of Lady Denton's guilt. Had Sir Daniel been banged on the head with a flat-iron in one of the back passages it might have been a more doubtful matter.

        He gained nothing by these enquiries beyond the elimination of the indoor staff from the meagre list of those on whom suspicion might reasonably rest. His acquired habit of observation caused him to be more than subconsciously aware that Mabel, like Tommy, seemed to be fond of sweets of an unusual size, one of which, like him, she had found some difficulty in disposing of while she talked, but he failed (for which he blamed himself some hours afterwards) to see that there might be any connection between this coincidence and the cause of Sir Daniel's death.

        He judged the results of the morning's investigations to be of an entirely negative character; yet the implicit championship of Lady Denton which he had encountered among the retainers of Bywater Grange, both inside and out, must have had some effect on his mind, for he found himself much less willing to return to headquarters with a report which would confirm the issuing of the warrant for Lady Denton's arrest than he had been when he had parted from her two or three hours before.

        He did not see how an interview with Sir Daniel's late secretary could alter the position in any way, in view of the excellent alibi which he possessed, nor what further enquiries could be made usefully in any other direction. The case seemed to be one to be placed before a jury, and which they must decide. Yet he resolved, even while he was listening to the cook's somewhat voluble opinion of her late employer, that he would not return without giving Mr. Redwin an opportunity of explaining the threats he had been heard to make.

        He asked the parlour-maid to tell her mistress that he proposed to trespass on the hospitality of the house for another night, but that he might not be in till late; and took a pleasant two-mile walk to the Station Inn.

Chapter VI

        It was a warm walk under the midday sun, and Inspector Pinkey entered the empty dining-room of the Station Inn with a slight sense of fatigue, sufficient to double the comfort of the armchair into which he sank, and with an appetite which considered that lunch, due to be served in twenty minutes, could not arrive too soon.

        But though his body relaxed in the cushioned ease of the chair, his mind was alert and active, and he was quickly and quietly aware of the entrance of another guest a few moments after himself, who sat down in such a position that he was out of sight unless the Inspector should turn deliberately round to survey him, which he was little likely to do, being satisfied that he could introduce himself better over the table of the coming lunch, if he should think it advisable to do so.

        Nor was the newcomer so entirely beyond observation as he may have supposed, for there was a firescreen in the summer emptiness of the grate - a glass flower-painted screen, which reflected with sufficient clearness to inform the Inspector that he was himself being surveyed with more than the polite and casual interest that a fellow-guest might be expected to show.

        A few minutes later, when the waiter had entered with a steaming calf's-head, and other dishes worthy of a larger assembly, Inspector Pinkey seated himself opposite to a man of something less than middle-age, neatly dressed, and with an appearance of competence and self-possession. He had sleek hair, short and black, and dark eyes in a sallow long-nosed face, and the Inspector, expert though he was in such questions of identification, had some doubt of whether he might be the man he sought.

        But it was a doubt that he need not show. He resolved to reveal himself, and, if it were not Redwin, he could turn the conversation so that no harm would be done.

        He asked casually for a mustard-pot that he did not need, and then added, in his less official manner: "Pinkey's my name, but I don't suppose you've heard of me before. I'd better give you a card."

        He handed one over the table, which Mr. Redwin (for it was he) glanced at without surprise.

        "So I supposed," he said sourly. "Something about Denton, no doubt? What do you want to know?"

        There was a directness of approach here which could only be met in the same way.

        "I hoped you might be able to give us information which would throw some light on the tragedy."

        "Why me?"

        "Because I understood that you were his confidential secretary until less than a fortnight ago."

        "Then I suppose you heard how I left?"

        "I have heard that you left abruptly, but I know nothing of the circumstances, nor am I particularly concerned to enquire. . . . I am merely asking you to give assistance, which is the duty of every citizen under such circumstances."

        Mr. Redwin made no answer to this. He went on with his meal as though he had not heard. The Inspector felt that it might be polite to add: "I need scarcely say that there is no suggestion that you had any complicity in the matter. If I ask your help, I am not therefore suggesting -"

        Mr. Redwin interrupted him abruptly: "No, you couldn't." It seemed for a moment that he proposed to terminate the conversation with that curt interjection; but he went on: "Though it's no thanks to you that I'm not in jail now. Do you think I don't know how everyone's been badgered to say they're not sure I was here? If I'd happened to have been out walking that afternoon, you'd have moved all heaven and hell to find some pretext to run me in."

        There was a tone of mingled anger and contempt in this speech which made it evident that there would be no willing help from Mr. Redwin unless he could be brought to a different mood.

        The Inspector was not in the habit of making outside reflections upon the local police whom he might be called in to assist, but he felt that the position justified him in remarking: "I'm sorry if anything's been allowed to happen which you have good ground to resent. . . . I only came down yesterday afternoon."

        "Well, it wasn't any too soon." The words were ungracious, but the tone was somewhat friendlier than before, and encouraged the Inspector to a further approach:

        "It must have been a shock to you when you heard of his death?"

        "I couldn't say I was over surprised."

        "Do you mean you had any reason to expect such an event?"

        "No, I wouldn't say that. But I might have made the right guess."

        "Do you mean you had reason to think that he'd shoot himself after you'd gone?"

        "No. Why should he?"

        "You don't think it was suicide?"

        "No, I don't."

        "Do you mean you had reason to suspect that he might be murdered?"

        Mr. Redwin seemed about to reply, and then pulled himself up, as though wondering whether he might be saying too much.

        "Inspector," he said, after a time, "you're asking me a good many questions. Do you mind if I ask you one for a change?"

        "Not at all. Of course, I can't promise to answer till I've heard what it is."

        "Well, that's how I feel about yours. . . . But what I'd like to know is whether there's any law against slandering people to the police, because if so I'd rather not say any more. I've had trouble enough."

        "If you've any honest suspicion that you can't prove, you can tell it to me in full confidence that I shall not let it go further until it's been properly verified and confirmed. . . . And if you've got such a suspicion, I need scarcely say that it's your duty to speak."

        "Well, I suppose that's what you'd be expected to say. But I'm not so sure. They might say it was malice, coming from me, and I don't know where it might end. . . . A man can have thoughts that he doesn't speak. Not that I ever heard, anyway. . . . I think I'll just sit back, and watch how the game goes."

        Inspector Pinkey controlled a natural irritation to say quietly: "I don't think we can leave it there, Mr. Redwin. It seems to me that you've said too little, or else too much.

        "I've told you that I'm sorry if you've been annoyed by any enquiries that the police felt it their duty to make, but you must see, if you look at it fairly, that you brought it more or less on yourself. . . . Unless people are saying things about you now that are not true, you had made threats in public places against Sir Daniel that brought suspicion on you inevitably when he was found shot as he was.

        "I've told you that we're not accusing you, as we know you were here at the time, but if things stand as they do now when the inquest's resumed, there may be evidence that these threats were made, and there'll be a vague suspicion against yourself that you'll find it hard to shake off. I suppose you know how people talk, without troubling to get the facts straight. And if that kind of talk once begins, it gets worse as the years go on.

        "It seems to me that you've got more interest than most in getting it properly cleared up, and the truth proved, whatever it may turn out to be."

        Mr. Redwin listened to this argument with an expressionless face. Then a slight smile of derision came to his lips as he asked: "And you want to make me believe that you can't see through it without my help? Well, you may be right about that. But I don't know -"

        The sentence stopped abruptly as a bucolic couple, delayed at the local cattle-market, noisily and hastily entered the room.

        The Inspector cursed inwardly, and then considered that there might be no loss on either side if there should be an interval for reflection on that which had been said already.

        He rose and called for his bill.

        "Well," he said, with as much geniality as he felt able to show, "you might think it over, and we'll have another chat later."

        He held out a hand, which was somewhat reluctantly taken, and went out to face the two-mile walk back to the police-station. He felt that he would be glad of the quiet opportunity of reviewing a suggestive and yet rather baffling conversation. And after that he would have another talk with Trackfield. He saw that he was not likely to go back to-morrow. There was more in this than appeared. It was unfortunate that he could form no opinion as to what it might be.

Chapter VII

        "I've been trying to get in touch with you since before lunch," Superintendent Trackfield began, as Inspector Pinkey entered his office, and before he could commence the narrative of his own experiences. "I had Forbes and Fisher on the 'phone just before noon. They wanted to know when the adjourned inquest would be likely to be held, or if there were any other developments in connection with Sir Daniel's death. They seemed to want to know more than they liked to ask, and when I told them that you were down here, and had the case in hand, they were anxious to speak to you, if possible, before three o'clock, when they have an appointment with another solicitor, who's arriving here from London on the two-fifty."

        "Any idea what it's about?"

        "I asked that, of course. I told them that we should be more likely to be able to help them if we knew why the information was required. They were very guarded in their reply, but I gathered that it is some financial question regarding Sir Daniel's estate. . . . I didn't press it beyond that, as I felt the matter was in your hands. I rang up Bywater Grange, and learned that you were staying there over to-night, but that they weren't expecting you back until late, so I thought you'd be likely to look in here before long. I promised Fisher I'd ring him up again at two-thirty, and let him know if I'd been able to get in touch with you."

        "What did you say the name of the firm is?"

        "Forbes and Fisher. They're the leading firm in these parts. It's a branch office here."

        "Didn't you mention them once before?"

        "Did I? Oh yes. It was they whom Redwin asked to take up his case, and they turned him down."

        "But he surely wouldn't have gone to Sir Daniel's firm? He couldn't have been his secretary for three years without knowing who his lawyers were."

        "They didn't act for Sir Daniel, as far as I've heard. His lawyers were a London firm - Scarf, Scarf and Wheeler. I don't know how Forbes and Fisher come on the scene now."

        "Well, we soon shall. . . . And if they want information from us, I think I'll invite them to say what Redwin asked them to do for him, and why they refused."

        "You don't think he was concerned in Sir Daniel's death?"

        "No, I don't. But I've had lunch with him, and I've seldom met anything more suggestive than the things he hints, and won't say. I haven't done with him yet."

        "He must have seen a good deal, living in the house for three years. But we've got to remember that he's a malicious and discredited man."

        "There's no doubt he's malicious. As to being discredited, I should say we ought to reserve opinion till we know more about how he came to leave the house in that sudden way. I shall be interested to hear Lady Denton's account of that."

        "You haven't got anything specific from him so far?"

        "No. He wasn't easy to handle at first, and the conversation was broken off when some men came into the room. He professed to be very bitter about the enquiries concerning his own movements which you very properly made. I told him that he brought them on himself, and he'd always be under some vague suspicion unless the matter were properly cleared. I can't say he opened up after that. But he made it plain that he thought it was murder, and that he wasn't surprised -that was the significant point - that it should have happened soon after he left. He hinted that if we were any good, we should be able to manage without his help."

        "Well, perhaps we shall. You haven't been down here for twenty-four hours yet, and things are beginning to stir."

        It was a generous speech, as Inspector Pinkey could not fail to perceive. The Superintendent might still wonder in his own mind whether it might not have been as well to arrest Adelaide Denton at once, as he had decided to do, and how things might have gone then.

        But he knew that whatever development there might now be would be ascribed - perhaps justly - to the superior technique and wider experience of the Metropolitan officer. Only in one event - if he should ultimately come to the same conclusion as to Lady Denton's guilt - would Superintendent Trackfield be confirmed in the Chief Constable's eyes as being adequate to the office he held. He did not exactly desire her conviction. She was an attractive lady, against whom he would have said that such an accusation was absurd a short fortnight ago. But he would not have been normally intelligent - and he was something better than that - had he not seen the position in which he stood.

        Inspector Pinkey was moved to reply with equal generosity, and partial truth: "You mustn't thank me too much for that. I've done no more at the Grange than to confirm what you'd done before. And whatever these lawyers are going to spill, you'd have got without help from me. I shouldn't wonder if I'm back in London in a couple of days with no more to report than that you were taking the right course when you decided to give the lady a rent-free lodging."

        "Well, it still points to her. If we could get something more in the way of motive than we have now. . . ."

        "Yes - if, as you say. We may be coming to something we haven't guessed, and we can't tell where it'll point. . . . But it's about time we gave these gentlemen a ring up."

        A moment later the Inspector was informed that Mr. Fisher's voice was at the other end of the wire.

        "Yes," he said. "Inspector Pinkey from Scotland Yard."

        "Could you tell me if the adjourned inquest on Sir Daniel Denton is likely to be held at an early date?"

        "I am afraid I can't give you any information unless I know why it's required."

        "It is in connection with an important point which has arisen in the course of the realization of Sir Daniel's estate."

        "Realization? Isn't it rather early for that? I shouldn't have thought you'd have had time even to prove the will."

        "Well, perhaps it wasn't quite the right word. I should explain that we are not the solicitors for Sir Daniel's estate. We are acting for other interests. The question of proving the will does not arise."

        "Can't you be rather more definite?"

        There was a moment of silence before Mr. Fisher replied, with a note of hesitation in his voice: "I'm afraid not. Not on the telephone, anyway. Would it be too much, Inspector, if I ask if you could give me a call?"

        "No, I'll do that. When would you like it to be?"

        "At once, if you can. I should like to see you before - well, straightway, if you can."

        The Inspector turned from the instrument to ask: "How far off are they? They want to see me now. Can I get a car?" The heat of the afternoon was increasing, and he felt he had walked enough.

        Being reassured on these points, he replied that he could be with Mr. Fisher in five minutes, and hung up the receiver.

Chapter VIII

        Mr. Fisher was a small, precise man, with little indication of age or youth, except in the greying of his close-cropped hair. He had a formal and somewhat hesitant manner, springing rather from habitual caution in the choice and use of words than any lack of confidence in his own capacity.

        "I must thank you, Inspector Pinkey," he began, "for your courtesy in calling upon me at such short notice, and on so vague a pretext. I am expecting a several gentlemen here in about twenty minutes, and I shall be glad to give you a short explanation before they arrive of the business which calls them here, and, I hope, receive such information from you as will simplify the position."

        "Are you asking me to meet these gentlemen?"

        "That must be for you to decide. I hope it may not be necessary."

        "Well, I expect you're right. We'd better not decide that till I understand what the trouble is. I need scarcely say that I shall be glad to give you any help I can consistently with my own duty. . . . In fact," he added, "I was going to ask a somewhat similar favour from you.

        "There's a man named Redwin hanging about here who used to be Sir Daniel's secretary (by the way, I wonder what he wanted a secretary for?), and was kicked out, so it is said, a few days before the death occurred. I'm rather anxious to learn anything I can about that."

        Mr. Fisher hesitated. He glanced at the clock. It was evident that he was unwilling to be diverted from that which was on his own mind. But it was a difficult request to rebuff, in view of that which he had to make.

        "I need scarcely say," he replied, "that I shall be glad to give you any help that I can. I believe Mr. Redwin actually came to see us. He would have seen our Mr. Weedon - our managing clerk at this branch. I do not know much of what passed, but I can tell you definitely that we are not acting for him."

        "So I was told. Perhaps if I could have five minutes with Mr. Weedon? We should still have time for a talk before the other gentlemen are due to arrive."

        Mr. Fisher hesitated again. He looked once more at the moving hand of the clock, which was now at two forty-five "If you will excuse me a moment," he said, "I will ascertain whether he is here now."

        Having said this, he did not ring for the information, though there was an office telephone on his desk, but went out of the room. The Inspector judged that the probability that he would be introduced to Mr. Weedon before the coming interview was not great.

        He was left alone for about three minutes, when Mr. Fisher returned alone.

        "Weedon," he said, "is engaged with a client, but I have had a few words with him. We will do all we can, of course; but your request places us in a rather difficult position. My view, with which I hope you will agree, is that if certain information is communicated to us with a request that we will act professionally upon it, such information is confidential, even though we may decline the business. It is confidential up to the moment when we decline to act, and remains so up to that point."

        "And there it naturally ends?"

        "That is a reasonable presumption." He paused, and added with an impressive deliberation: "Mr. Redwin, after having been told that we were not prepared to act for him, made the gratuitous remark that we could please ourselves, but she'd be sorry before he'd done."

        "She?"

        "Yes."

        "Meaning Lady Denton, of course?"

        "It is a natural deduction, which I am not prepared to dispute."

        "I may conclude that he had some plan of blackkmailing her, with which a firm of your reputation naturally declined to be mixed up?"

        "That must be your own conclusion. It is not a question to which I am in a position to give a negative reply." He added, as though fearing that he had said too much: "Blackmail is, of course, a particularly vague word. I am not sure that a legal definition exists. . . . If I may offer a word of probably quite needless advice, I would suggest that anything coming from that source should not be lightly believed. I am told that he has been heard - outside this office - to express a strong animosity against Lady Denton, and I should suppose that he is a clever and unscrupulous man."

        He glanced at the clock again, which was now at six minutes to three. "Will you permit me now," he asked with a slight smile, "to put another matter before you?" - The Inspector was not clear that he had gained much, though it might be another pointer on the right road, and, in any case, as much as Mr. Fisher could fairly give. He felt that he could no longer delay to listen to the business which brought him there.

        "Yes," he said, "it was kind of you to let me in first." And as he settled himself to listen, a clerk came in with a strip of paper which Mr. Fisher read, and then said: "Ask Mr. Strange to wait a few minutes; and Mr. Wheeler, and Mr. Borman, if they get here before I ring."

        He commenced at once, as the clerk went out, speaking rather more rapidly than his habit was, though still with some deliberate precision.

        "I must be brief, and come to the point by a shorter road than I meant to take. There is a question risen in an acute form regarding a certain clause in an insurance policy under which Sir Daniel Denton's life was covered for a large amount. It is a matter which immediately concerns the local branch of the London and Northern Bank, whose manager is waiting to see me now. Mr. Borman, the solicitor to the bank (whose country agents we are), is on the way here, and I have asked Mr. Wheeler, Sir Daniel's own solicitor, to be present also, as I suppose he will be acting for Lady Denton, whose interests may be at stake."

        "I suppose the question is whether he committed suicide?"

        "Yes. In the first place - yes."

        "And that implies that his life was insured for some large amount within twelve months of his death?"

        "Yes, but there is an explanation of that. . . . Of course, the verdict of a coroner's jury is final on such a point. We understand that the inquest is now adjourned sine die. If you could assure me that it is likely to be held within fourteen days -"

        "I'm afraid I couldn't do that. But I think I can go as far as to say that, on Sir Lionel Tipshift's evidence, it's unlikely - extremely unlikely - that any jury could return a suicide verdict. I should say that the policy will be almost certainly paid."

        "I was inclined to anticipate that reply. Unfortunately, that conclusion only raises a further question of a more delicate kind. There is a rumour that reached the bank yesterday - I am not at liberty to say how, but you know how important it is that a bank should be fully informed, and how numerous their sources of information are - a rumour which is probably quite baseless, and which I should not mention but that it is unavoidable, that there was a suspicion that Sir Daniel had died by his wife's hands - that, in fact, a warrant had been already issued for her arrest."

        "I can tell you definitely that that is untrue."

        "I am pleased to hear it. I have met Lady Denton socially, and the rumour appeared incredible. Can you tell me that it is a quite baseless report?"

        "I don't know that I ought to say more than I now have. You will appreciate that I have not been on this case for more than twenty-four hours. At the present moment there is no accusation against Lady Denton of any kind. . . . - May I say that, if you eliminate the possibility of suicide, as I think you may, it is difficult to understand how it can be a question of such urgency, or how it can affect the validity of a policy on Sir Daniel's life?"

        "I have not said that it would. But the legal position is somewhat complicated, and counsel's opinion was being taken upon it in London this morning, the result of which I have not yet heard. . . . You are doubtless aware of the principle that a man cannot profit from his own crime?"

        "Yes, I see."

        As Inspector Pinkey said this, he rose up to go. He held out a hand which Mr. Fisher delayed to take. "If you would like to remain. . . ." he said tentatively.

        It was the Inspector's turn to hesitate. If he resolved to stay, he might hear things which it would be very useful to know. But he could not discuss the case at this stage with the various gentlemen who were about to assemble there.

        "I should be pleased," he said, "to remain; if it be understood that I shall not be asked to say more than I have already done."

        "Very well, I will ask them in. I have no doubt that they are waiting now."

        A minute later the three gentlemen entered the room.

Chapter IX

        The bank manager, Mr. Strange, was a man of middle age, slightly bald, slightly rotund, with a reputation for few words, and a placidity which remained outwardly unruffled by this unexpected disturbance in the smooth working of the largest account but one on the books of the branch he ruled.

        Mr. Borman, the acting head of a firm of solicitors who specialized in the higher ranges of banking law, and who drew an income therefrom about equal to that of three High Court judges, was a tall, well-groomed man, with a natural air of dignified authority, and a cultivated suavity which was liable to turn to sarcastic curtness if his sense of logic were tried too far, or his dignity took offence.

        The other lawyer, Mr. Wheeler, was of a different type. He recruited clients on the golf-course, or in the ten-shilling enclosure, who were handed over subsequently to the ministrations of his more industrious partners. He had a wide knowledge of men, and a sufficient knowledge of law. His usual joviality was now subdued to a wary reticence. Naturally of a more robustly combative temperament than were, perhaps, any of the four other gentlemen who were round him now, he had come prepared to express his mind with any necessary emphasis on behalf of a dead client, and one who lived.

        But it was not for him to begin. He had not called the meeting, for which he would have said that there was no reason at all. He came to listen, before he could have occasion to talk, and he had been careful to join the train at the last moment, traveling in a different compartment from that which was dignified by Mr. Borman's occupation, and to order a vehicle in advance to meet his arrival, so that they should not be invited to enter a single taxi.

        "I think, Mr. Fisher," Mr. Borman observed, "now that we are all together, if you would give us a short statement of the position, particularly for Mr. Wheeler's benefit, it might be a convenient course to adopt. . . . Unless, of course, you have obtained information since you 'phoned me this morning, of such a definite character that it is needless for us to pursue the subject at all."

        "I'm afraid," Mr. Fisher replied, "I cannot go quite that far. We have the benefit of the presence here of Chief Inspector Pinkey, of Scotland Yard, and he is prepared to tell us that the medical evidence is strongly opposed to the theory of suicide, and that the report which has unfortunately reached us regarding Mr. Wheeler's client is without foundation. He does not wish to discuss the matter further at this moment, having only taken it up during the last twenty-four hours, but perhaps you may consider that that is all which we need, or are entitled to know."

        "I would prefer, if I may," the Inspector said, "to put it in my own words. The result of the post-mortem is such that, apart from any new evidence, which we do not anticipate, it is improbable that any jury would return a verdict of suicide - in fact, it would be an act of perversity on their part to do so.

        "I am told that you have heard a report that a warrant has been issued for Lady Denton's arrest, which I think it my duty to contradict, as it is untrue."

        Mr. Borman said: "Thank you, Inspector. That is quite clear. May I ask whether the date of the adjourned inquest has now been fixed?"

        "No. It has not."

        "Do you anticipate that it will be held at an early date?"

        "I am sorry that I cannot answer that question."

        Mr. Borman looked at Mr. Wheeler and the bank manager, rather requiring than asking their assent, as he gave his judgment on these replies: "Then I am afraid we are much where we were before. I'm afraid we must go on."

        "Gentlemen," Mr. Wheeler interposed, "I think I ought to say one word before you begin. I have come to listen, which I am prepared to do, but it must not therefore be understood that I consider that there was any proper occasion to ask me here.

        "I heard of this suicide suggestion from you before, and I told you, from my knowledge of Sir Daniel's character, you needn't give it another thought. I now hear, for the first time, that you've been entertaining another rumour, of a grossly slanderous kind, and we've all heard that it's as false as you might have guessed it to be. I don't say that this isn't a privileged occasion, and I won't ask you where it began, but if I catch anyone repeating it outside this room, they'll have a writ just as quickly as we can get it issued."

        "Perhaps, Mr. Wheeler," Mr. Borman suggested, with an air of suave authority which approached rebuke, "if you would kindly hear Mr. Fisher's statement first, so that we should be clear as to what we have to discuss -"

        "Well, I've said I'll do that. But I should like to point out first that the obligations of the bank are under a deed which is not impeached by my client's death, and of which the covenants on our side have been fully performed."

        Mr. Borman did not offer any comment on this. He gave a slight sign to Mr. Fisher, who understood that the conversation was not to be continued on their side. He commenced his statement accordingly:

        "Sir Daniel Denton, as we are all aware, has been engaged during the last few years in financial transactions of a somewhat extensive and decidedly speculative character, the means for which have been largely supplied by an overdraft, for which he arranged by the deposit of certain securities with the local branch of the London and Northern Bank.

        "Somewhat less than a year ago, he required not only additional accommodation at the time, but the assurance that some large sums would be contingently available at later dates. He had acquired a very large block of Medwin-Badcock shares, which were only partly paid up, and on which a further call, involving an immediate payment of thirty thousand pounds, was liable to be made at any time after the end of September of this year, and this call has, in fact, been made, and the money is now due.

        "Sir Daniel at that time had a large income - far beyond his expenditure - derived from the life-interest in his mother's Edgley estate, which, in the absence of more direct heirs, now passes absolutely to his cousin, Benjamin Sidmouth.

        "In purchasing these shares, Sir Daniel very naturally wished to be assured in advance that, if such a call should be made, he would have the necessary funds available for its satisfaction, and he therefore entered into an arrangement with Mr. Strange by which this money would be found, if and when it might be required, against a charge of five thousand pounds per annum upon the life-interest I have mentioned.

        "But as that interest would cease - as, in fact, it has ceased - at his death, the bank very properly stipulated that they should have the additional security of an insurance upon his life for the full sum of thirty thousand pounds; for which purpose certain existing policies for smaller amounts were cancelled, and a single new one was issued for that sum. . . . I am afraid that these details, which it is necessary to recite, can be of little interest to you, Inspector. If you have given us all the help you can, and would wish to withdraw -"

        "If you are reciting them for my benefit," Mr. Wheeler interposed, in a tone less rude than the words suggested, "you are really wasting your breath, for I am already conversant with Sir Daniel's affairs."

        "Not at all," Inspector Pinkey answered the previous speaker, "if I have your permission to stay. You are giving me information which I am glad to have. Do I understand rightly that Sir Daniel's death was of no financial benefit to - to any members of his family?"

        Mr. Wheeler took the answer upon himself. "Yes, you certainly may. Very much the reverse. The larger part of his income ceased with his death."

        Mr. Fisher did not approve the vicarious answering of a question which was addressed to himself. He ignored the interruption, and was precise in reply.

        "I believe that, under the terms of Sir Daniel's will (for probate of which I understand that Mr. Wheeler has already applied), Lady Denton is his sole heir. But, as you have heard, the major part of his income has ended with his decease. . . . So far as Mr. Gerard is conncerned, an income which Sir Daniel was administering for his benefit now passes into his own control. There is no change beyond that."

        "There is no suggestion," the Inspector continued, "that Sir Daniel was financially embarrassed by his speculations? I should like to know whether he may have left a substantial estate, apart from the life-interest which has now ceased."

        The first question was answered by two voices at once.

        "No," Mr. Fisher replied, in a coldly judicial manner, "I should say not."

        "You may take it," Mr. Wheeler said, with more emphasis, "that he was not embarrassed at all. His investments were very soundly made."

        The second query caused Mr. Borman to break the impatient silence with which he had listened to this disorderly interruption of the business which brought him there.

        "That," he said dryly, "is what I understand we had come here to decide."

        Inspector Pinkey had the wisdom to become silent. He realized that the less his presence was emphasized, the more he was likely to learn. He had an instinctive perception that Mr. Wheeler was annoyed at his being there, and he was prepared to withdraw at once if any protest should be made. Mr. Wheeler's feelings were just what he supposed them to be. Considering that the question of whether Adelaide Denton had murdered her husband could never be far below the surface of the discussion which was before them, it was natural that her solicitor should consider that few men could be less appropriately present than the Scotland Yard officer who had the official investigation in hand.

        But he considered also that the harm, if any, had now been done. It might be increased if any protest should come from him. Beyond that, he saw that the Inspector wished to remain, and he was too shrewdly aware of how much human prides and weaknesses enter into these matters to wish to antagonize him in any way.

        He had been conscious for some days of the peril of Lady Denton's position. He had resolved, only a few minutes ago, that when that meeting was over he must not return to town without a call at Bywater Grange. He must form his own opinion of her guilt or innocence, must induce her to confide, if possible, in himself; and if it should appear that it was her own hand that had fired the shot, he must consider how suspicion could still be stifled, or how best he could contrive a line of defence which would bring her free. He realized that he might soon be meeting the Inspector again, though he did not know how very soon it would be.

        Meanwhile, the fact of the Inspector's presence was causing him to take a more emphatic tone than he might have thought necessary had he been dealing with his fellow lawyers alone. In his own mind, he recognized the awkward position in which the bank was placed. But Mr. Borman was quite capable of protecting that institution without help from him. His duty was to watch Lady Denton's interest, and assert her rights.

        Mr. Borman, having led the meeting back to the business which brought them there, came to the point at once.

        "The fact is, Mr. Wheeler," he said, "I can't advise the bank to find such a sum as thirty thousand pounds, unless there is a reasonable certainty that the insurance money will be paid; and, as Lady Denton's interests as Sir Daniel's heir are so deeply involved, I thought it no more than courteous to yourself to let you know how the case stands."

        "I don't want to be rude," Mr. Wheeler replied "but I don't see what option the bank has got. We're not negotiating now. It's a matter of reading the deed, and you'll find there couldn't be anything much clearer than that."

        "I may tell you," Mr. Borman replied, in more temperate words than those which Mr. Wheeler employed, but with a formal aloofness of manner which tipped the scale to the other side, "that we have taken counsel's opinion upon the points involved in our decision this morning, and it is upon that opinion that we are proceeding now."

        "Then what," Mr. Wheeler asked abruptly, "are you proposing to do?"

        "Unless substantial further security can be put forward, we have no option but to dispose of the shares. Even now, apart from the insurance policy, it appears that we are not fully secured."

        "You mean, you'd knock the bottom out of the market by throwing all those shares on it, just as a call's being made, and sell them for half what they're worth, and then point to the wretched price you got to justify what you'd done."

        "I mean that a security's worth no more to a bank than it will fetch at a forced sale. I don't need to tell you that."

        "No. And the question doesn't arise. You've got no right to sell; and I don't see what I can do beyond sending you a formal protest, and a warning of the responsibility you incur."

        "I am sorry you take it in that way. We had hoped that there might be other assets available with which to support the account. I suggest that it could be no loss to your client, under any circumstances, to take that course; unless you set up the position that the estate is insolvent, or think it preferable that the shares should be sold."

        Mr. Wheeler declined to discuss these propositions, seeing to where they might lead.

        "You can't ask me to do that," he said. "The will isn't even proved. You'll find you'll get the insurance money all right in the end. You're going head on for an action for damages that'll hurt you a lot more than paying the call, and all for no real reason at all."

        "I'm afraid it's a risk we must take," Mr. Borman replied, in a tone that suggested that there would be no sleep lost over that decision. He added, in his suave manner: "I don't want you to think that we're inclined to act harshly in this matter. I think you should know that we've been in communication with the company's solicitors already, and that we had arranged for some delay in paying the call, without formal default, if we could give a near and definite date on which the matter would finally be dealt with. You will appreciate that that was not a simple matter to arrange, with so large an amount involved."

        "I wouldn't be too sure about that. I don't suppose they want all those shares thrown on the market just now."

        "But," Mr. Borman went on, ignoring this interruption, "it now appears that such a date cannot be given. I am afraid you must take it as definite that I cannot advise a course which might finally leave these shares on the bank's hands. You must remember that, when this call is paid, there may be others to follow in future years. The bank does not normally care for securities of that nature."

        Mr. Wheeler repressed an inclination to retort: "Oh, don't they? What about their own shares?" But he had been thinking quickly while these exchanges were made, and what he did utter was the laconic query: "Fifty-fifty?"

        Mr. Borman, experienced and adroit in his own way in such negotiations, had yet some difficulty in avoiding expressions of bewilderment and then surprise.

        "Do you mean," he asked, "that you might be prepared to support the account with an additional fifteen thousand pounds, if we should accept that as sufficient?"

        "Well, I don't say but I might. There's some money of Lady Denton's that's not earning much now. And there'd be no risk that I see. It would have to be quite clear that there's no bargain about the deed. The deed stands. It's entirely a question of what interest it will save. It's got to be an investment proposition, and nothing else."

        "I don't think," Mr. Strange said, speaking for the first time, "that there need be any difficulty about that."

        Mr. Wheeler rose to go without further words. He said briefly to Mr. Borman, who now shook hands in his most affable manner: "If you tell your office to get in touch with our Mr. Spencer in the morning, any time after ten-forty-five." Then he said genially to Inspector Pinkey, who also had risen to go: "Coming my way?" To which that gentleman gave a ready assent, without asking what it might be.

        They walked out together, leaving the very capable representatives of the London and Northern Bank satisfied that they had found a better issue out of a worrying position than they had expected to reach.

        Mr. Wheeler was also well content. He knew that Adelaide Denton's money would not be jeopardized unless the insurance policy were finally declared invalid, and possibly not even then. He was convinced that suicide could not be established. Only if she were accused and convicted of her husband's murder. . . . What he had done was to throw her money into the scale as a demonstration of the absurdity of the idea. And how could it be used, in her interest, for a better purpose than that?

Chapter X

        Inspector Pinkey, following in the direction that Mr. Wheeler led, and exchanging the preliminary platitudes about the vagaries of English weather, with which those who are of slight or recent acquaintance habitally prelude any serious conversation, observed that they were heading for Bywater Grange.

        "I expect," he said, in cautious approach to the subject that was on both their minds, "you will be seeing Lady Denton while you are here?"

        "Yes, I am going there now. . . . I shouldn't wonder if I have to ask her to put me up for the night. There are several matters of business that I may as well clear up while I am here."

        The Inspector, seeing that Mr. Wheeler appeared to have come down with no more of the necessities of individual comfort than his pockets might be supposed to hold, concluded silently that the intention of staying must have been formed, since he had heard the suggestion that his client might be in danger of arrest on a capital charge.

        "If you do that," he said, "I may see you again. Lady Denton has kindly offered me the hospitality of the Grange."

        If Mr. Wheeler felt any surprise at this news, he gave no sign. He said: "Excellent. . . . I need scarcely say that if Lady Denton or I can give you any information or help, you have only to let us know."

        "Yes. Lady Denton assured me of that."

        The Inspector spoke with more reserve than before. He did not intend that this genial solicitor should take charge of himself, or the case that he had in hand.

        Mr. Wheeler, very sensitive to atmosphere, perceived that he must move cautiously here.

        "It is most desirable," he said with gravity, "in Lady Denton's interest, that the murderer should be found."

        "Yes, I should say that it is."

        Mr. Wheeler reminded himself that he had not yet seen Lady Denton, and that it might be wiser not to develop conversation with the detective till he was better informed of what might have passed already between them. He became silent, and felt some relief when the Inspector paused at a branching road, and said: "I'd better not come further with you now. I told Lady Denton I shouldn't be in till late. . . . I expect I shall see you at breakfast, and perhaps we can have a chat then."

        "Glad to, if you're not too late down. I shall have to leave in time to catch the nine twenty-four."

        "Oh, that's all right. Breakfast's never too early for me."

        They parted with some recovered cordiality, born of the fact that they were both getting what the moment required, which was to be alone with their own thoughts.

        Mr. Wheeler walked on to the Grange, revolving a speculation which had crossed his mind during the discussion of the suicide theory that afternoon. He had dismissed it with a word of contempt, and he still thought it a most improbable thing. But suppose that Sir Daniel had had that clause of the insurance in mind? Suppose he had tried to shoot himself in such a way that it would appear certain that he had been shot by another hand? He did not think it probable, for he could see no reason why he should want to shoot himself at all, and, in any case, it was not an idea to be spoken aloud, with £30,000 to be lost if he could make it believed.

        Only - if it were agreed that murder had been done - if the insurance money were paid - if Lady Denton (it was a possibility which he saw that he ought to face) should be put on trial after that - then, and not till then, such a theory might be advanced, to confuse the minds of a jury who would surely be reluctant to convict an attractive woman of such a crime - a stupid, improbable, almost incredibly motiveless crime, as it must appear to be.

        He saw the weaker side of the case, if the theory of suicide should be pushed aside. The unanswered question - Who was it, if not she? But he felt some confidence in his case - he was always confident in himself - that even if Adelaide Denton should be arrested on such a charge, he would be able to bring her off. He felt some confidence in his client also, that she would not fail in nerve or courage, and of her appearance - that vital weapon in the defence of peccant women - there could be little left to desire.

        He wondered also what might be the activities of Chief Inspector Pinkey - where had he been going, and with what object, now? Perhaps he was already on the actual culprit's track, and Lady Denton might be in no danger at all? But, curiously and illogically enough, though he had formed an opinion that the Inspector was a man for his friends to trust and his foes to fear, and though he was resolved not to consider even the possibility of Lady Denton's guilt, he had no real expectation that any energy of detection would produce a man who had fired the shot. Perhaps the absence of any theory of motive behind the crime, of any guess of whom the murderer would be likely to be, assisted to give a feeling of unreality to the pursuit of that theoretic criminal. He was not a living man, to feel the handcuffs on his wrists and to be lodged in a prison cell, but rather one to be postulated for the defence of a woman who might stand in the dock, where it was difficult to imagine that he would himself appear.

        With such thoughts in his mind, he went on to Bywater Grange, to be warmly welcomed by Lady Denton, who felt a natural relief in the presence of one whom she recognized as both a loyal friend and a powerful ally. Her only equal and confidant having been Gerard Denton during the stresses of the past week, it was a pleasant contrast to talk to one of so absolute a contrast, both in brains and courage.

        He had come down, he said vaguely, to meet the bank's solicitors in reference to some matter concerning Sir Daniel's estate, and it was not until he was seated on her right side at dinner, with Gerard Denton opposite, that he led up to the subject on which he felt there must be something more to be said, by remarking that he had met Chief Inspector Pinkey at Forbes and Fisher's - "a very capable officer, I should suppose him to be."

        "Yes," Lady Denton replied; "he is staying here. I expect you heard that?"

        "So he told me. I must try to get a chat with him before I leave. I hope to ascertain what progress he has been able to make, if the official reticence can be overcome. There are business reasons why it is important to clear up the circumstances as promptly as possible."

        Lady Denton did not avoid the issue, nor did she shrink from plainer words than he had thought it tactful to use. Her eyes met his as she asked: "You mean the circumstances of my husband's death?"

        "Yes. It is particularly important that the question of suicide should be eliminated."

        "But that's what I think it was."

        "I'm afraid the medical evidence makes it difficult, if not impossible, to adopt such a conclusion. Incidentally, if that view were accepted, it might involve a loss of thirty thousand pounds to your husband's estate."

        "How could it do that?"

        "There is an insurance policy for that amount which would be invalidated if Sir Daniel took his own life."

        Lady Denton was silenced for a moment by this information. She looked down in a frowning thought-fulness, but when she spoke she held stubbornly to the opinion she had expressed before.

        "Well, I told Inspector Pinkey I thought it was that.

        I don't see how it could have been anything else."

        "Did he appear to agree?"

        "He didn't say anything."

        "I only asked you because I heard him say this afternoon that we could put the idea of suicide out of our minds. He is sure that Sir Daniel died by another hand. . . . I wished to know whether he were being as frank with you as I am sure that you were with him."

        "He didn't say much. He just asked. I told him I wished I could help him more, but I didn't see how I could."

        "If you just tell the truth," Mr. Wheeler replied, watching her with a friendly keenness while he spoke, "you don't need to worry beyond that. It's almost always the best way."

        "It's the only way here," she said in a definite tone, which should have reassured, but left him vaguely dissatisfied.

        Mr. Gerard Denton had listened to this discussion with the expression of one reluctantly present at a conversation of unpleasantly indecent character, which he is unable to stop. Now that it paused, he said irritably: "I can't think why you ever let him enter the house."

        "Inspector Pinkey? Perhaps it's because I'm not quite a fool."

        Her tone was sharp as she addressed her brother-in-law, but she was smiling as she turned to Mr. Wheeler in explanation. "Gerard always did object to men with red hair."

        Mr. Wheeler appeared uninterested in this curious antipathy. He said: "I think you took a wise course."

        "It seemed sense," she replied. "Gerard won't see that it's the best thing that could happen that someone with brains and imagination should take it up. Superintendent Trackfield couldn't get beyond the fact that I was first on the scene. I believe he'd have accused me of shooting Daniel myself, if it hadn't been too absurd."

        Mr. Wheeler did not feel able to reject that possibility, remembering what he had heard during the afternoon. "I suppose," he said, "that the police's difficulty is to explain how anyone else could have been there. But doesn't the idea that no one left by the window after he was shot rest entirely on the evidence of the gardener's boy?"

        "Yes. He was weeding the drive."

        "I should like a few words with that boy before I go back to-morrow."

        "You'll get nothing out of him," Gerard interposed sulkily. "He's too dense."

        Lady Denton confirmed this, though in a different tone. "If he doesn't take to you, you'll do all the talking, and he'll just grin."

        Mr. Wheeler was left in some uncertainty concerning her attitude. She appeared indifferent. But he was sure that Gerard would prefer that he should not question the boy, which he became more resolved to do.

        He left that subject to ask: "I suppose Redwin's still hanging round?"

        "Yes, he was till yesterday, anyway. He's put up at the Station Inn."

        "I suppose you can't connect him with it in anyway?"

        "No. They say he was playing billiards all the afternoon." She smiled slightly as she added: "I believe the police were quite annoyed about that."

        "Yes, I expect they were. . . . But I wish you'd tell me just how he left, and why. I know that Sir Daniel turned him out of the house on an accusation of dishonesty of some kind, and that he was vowing vengeance against you both; but I never heard the details of what occurred. . . . In fact, I never saw Sir Daniel alive after I had a brief note from him to say that I was not to pass Redwin's signature in future on any document without reference to him."

        "Of course I'll tell you," she replied, "if you're really anxious to know, but does it matter now?"

        He saw that she was reluctant to speak, but he felt that, for her own sake, he must have whatever information Inspector Pinkey might be obtaining in other ways.

        "Yes," he said, "I think it does. A man may be responsible for that which he does not do with his own hand. The question of an accomplice cannot be dismissed without more knowledge than I have now. Besides, Inspector Pinkey will be interviewing him. There can be no doubt about that. And I should like to have some idea of what tale he will be likely to tell."

        He thought there was some effort of self-control behind the smiling lightness of her reply. "You can be sure of one thing. There'll be nothing good about me." And he noticed that she made no further demur about giving him her account of the events which had led to Mr. Redwin's abrupt departure from Bywater Grange.

        "I don't really know," she said, "what he'd done wrong, or how much. I just told Daniel about a matter that seemed queer to me, and I found I'd put a match to something that blew up with a bang.

        "It was a letter to him from Mr. Strange at the bank, which was in the same envelope as one to myself about my own account. I suppose that was a clerk's mistake, but it turned out that whatever Mr. Redwin had been doing had been quite open, and the bank had no idea that Sit Daniel didn't know everything. Mr. Redwin is a very clever man, and I suppose he thought it was quite safe, and, if anything were found out, it would look best for him.

        "You see, Sir Daniel had got to trust him entirely. He used to open all the correspondence, and keep all the business accounts.

        "It was about two years ago that Sir Daniel was associated with some men who were trying to get control of the Catstein Syndicate, and I knew that Mr. Redwin was helping him then to buy in other names besides his own. Then there was a quarrel, and the thing dropped.

        "A few weeks ago I noticed a report that the Catstein shares were going up, and when I mentioned that to Daniel, he said it was nothing to him. I remember the expression he used, that he'd sold out every damned share he'd got, twelve months ago. So when I saw this letter addressed to Mr. Redwin, about a dividend cheque for a rather large amount on Catstein Syndicate shares, I remarked about it quite casually, when we were all at lunch together.

        "Mr. Redwin said they were a little side speculation of his own, and I suppose, if that were true, there'd have been nothing wrong; but Sir Daniel wouldn't leave it at that. He went into all the figures himself, and said he found that he had bought a thousand shares more than he'd been paid for, and that Mr. Redwin had falsified the amount to make it square on the books.

        "Of course, Mr. Redwin didn't admit that. He gave some explanation that I didn't understand, and they were at it in the study for an hour or more after.

        "Then they came in here together. Sir Daniel said: 'Adelaide, I've given Redwin half an hour to pack up. If he doesn't want to be thrown through the window, he'll be out of the door before then.' Mr. Redwin was just as angry, but in a quieter way. He said: 'You'll think better of this by to-morrow.' And he added something about some papers that Mr. Thompson might be interested to see."

        "Who is Mr. Thompson?"

        "I think he meant the Income Tax Inspector. That's his name, anyway. But Daniel got more angry than before when he said that. He said: 'You just try it on, and I'll see that you get five years, if you get a day. You ought to be glad enough to get away with a whole skin.' And after that Mr. Redwin went upstairs to pack."

        "Well," Mr. Wheeler commented, at the end of this narrative, "that's clear enough, and very much what I thought. But if that's all there is in it, I don't see why he should have his knife into you."

        "He thought I did it on purpose to get him out of the house. You see, we had never been friends. He wasn't the sort of man I could like, and I didn't want Daniel to have a secretary at all. I didn't want him to speculate as he did. There was no need, for we'd both got more money than we ever spent; and he wasn't easy to live with if he thought things were going wrong."

        The tale was, as Mr. Wheeler said, very much what he had expected to hear, but he would have been glad if there had been more. For there was nothing in this to suggest an explanation of Sir Daniel's violent end, whether by his own hand, or that of another man. And he saw that Redwin's alibi was of an impregnable strength.

        Yet here was a man shot, and another with whom he had quarrelled a few days before, and who, after he had been rebuffed in an attempt to secure legal redress, had remained in the neighbourhood, threatening the vengeance which he still hoped to inflict. There seemed an almost overwhelming probability that there must be some connection between the two, and, if there were, it appeared to him, on the partial knowledge that he then had, that it must be very greatly to Lady Denton's advantage to lay it bare.

        "Well," he said, "if that's all you know, we must hope that Pinkey'll find out a lot more."

        Lady Denton did not respond to this suggestion, but she rose from the table a moment later with the remark that she would be glad if he would have coffee with her in her own room. The words were said in a way that put her half-brother aside, a position which he accepted without demur, going out by another door.

Chapter XI

        Lady Denton sipped her coffee, and gazed into a fire which had been necessitated by a chilly October evening, following the warmth of a sunny day.

        Her companion, seated on the other side of the little coffee-table, was as silent as she. He knew that she had not brought him there to chat of indifferent things, and he thought it best to wait her own time to begin.

        "What I told you," she said at last, "was quite true."

        "So I supposed."

        "But it was not everything."

        Mr. Wheeler did not look surprised at this statement. He may have had a slight doubt as to whether he were going to hear all the truth now. Had that long silence been occupied in deciding how small a further installment might serve her need? Or had she even been considering whether she would be secure from detection in a useful lie? With all his experience he could not be sure. But she was his client, and, till the contrary should be proved, he must accept her statements as the instructions on which he was bound to act. Unless, of course, he must resist or refuse them for her own good.

        "It is always difficult," he said, "in a matter of this kind, not to leave something out. It's sometimes hard even to judge which may be the really important things."

        "Yes," she said, in the tone of one who might be in such a doubt as she spoke. And then: "I don't think Daniel was really glad that I found Mr. Redwin out. I think he'd suspected before, but hadn't wanted to see. He wasn't easy to get on with at times."

        "Meaning Sir Daniel?"

        "Yes."

        "So," he said, "I had understood."

        He was patient, understanding that these were little more than meaningless words, while she hardened her resolution for that which she had to say.

        "You knew Mrs. Caver," she said at last, "my sister, who died last year?"

        "Yes. We acted for her in the divorce."

        "Yes, I remembered that. She came to stay with me for a week when she first quarrelled with John. That was a year before."

        "I don't think I knew that; but it was a very natural thing to do. How does that matter to us now?"

        "She had some of Percy Hudson's letters with her then. I tried to persuade her to burn them, but she wouldn't do that. She was afraid to take them with her when she went back. (They made it up at that time.) She said John would find them. . . . In the end, she left them with me, to be taken care of till she asked for them again."

        "And how does that matter now?"

        "Mr. Redwin took them when he went up to pack. At least, I suppose it was then."

        "You needn't trouble about that. After the divorce, and your sister's death -"

        "Mr. Redwin thought they were written to me."

        "Do you mean that he tried, or is trying, to blackmail you about them?"

        "He told me that he would send them to Daniel unless I got him to take him back."

        "Which you very properly refused to do?"

        "No. I tried. But Daniel wouldn't listen. I didn't suppose he would."

        "But if the letters were not for you, I don't see why you should care."

        "Daniel mightn't have believed that."

        "But the name would have proved it."

        "They weren't - I mean, such letters often aren't written so that you can be sure. It might be just a pet name. Something silly. You know they are, more often than not."

        "Then there'd be no proof that they were written to you more than to anyone else."

        Lady Denton seemed to puzzle over this for a moment, as though it were a fact that she had overlooked, and was now unprepared to meet. Then she said:

        "But he must have known the envelope they were in. They were in a large envelope that had been addressed to me before I used it to put them away."

        "Who must have known?"

        "Sir Daniel, of course. You keep asking questions, and I'm not telling it the right way. When I went to him, I saw the envelope on his desk."

        "You mean when he was shot?"

        "Yes."

        "Where is it now?"

        "I burned it the first chance I got."

        "I should doubt the wisdom of that. Had anyone seen it beside yourself?"

        "No. No one could, except Gerard, and he wouldn't have noticed it. Not then. I saw it as he went out at the window to see if the man who shot Daniel was still there. I burned it - all the letters, I mean, just as they were, in the grate here, that night."

        "What do you suggest that this had to do with Sir Daniel's death?"

        "I don't know. . . . I suppose nothing at all. . . .

        But I thought that you ought to know. If Mr. Redwin gets talking to the Inspector, I don't know what he might say."       

        "Nor do I. But you can be sure there's one thing he won't do. He won't mention those letters. He won't accuse himself of such conduct as that. Not unless he's quite mad."

        Lady Denton accepted this assurance with an expression of some relief, though she may have observed with a natural annoyance that, if that judgment were sound, there had been no occasion to expose the incident, even to Mr. Wheeler's professionally friendly ears. Certainly she would not have told it, but for an uneasy doubt of what story Mr. Redwin might have prepared for the Inspector's consumption.

        "Well, I'm glad I know," Mr. Wheeler said, "and I'm not sure but it might be worse. I shouldn't lose much sleep over that. But I'll get up in the morning in time to have a good talk with Inspector Pinkey before I go. . . . By the way, was the drawer open or shut? I mean the one from which Sir Daniel, or someone else, must have taken the pistol before he was shot."

        Lady Denton seemed somewhat confused by the abruptness of this question. "The drawer?" she said. "Oh, open. No, I mean shut. Yes. I'm quite sure about that."

        "And you've really told me everything now?" Mr. Wheeler asked this in a casual, reassuring tone, as though everything were not much. But he looked keenly and somewhat anxiously at his attractive client; for how could he fight her battles, if she kept back half the truth, as he knew that some women will till they are driven back to the last ditch, or even a fatal minute longer than that.

        "Yes," she said, "I've told you everything now. And, so far as I'm concerned, I think it's enough too."

Chapter XII

        When Inspector Pinkey parted from Lady Denton's, solicitor, he did not return to the police-station, nor did he descend again upon Mr. Redwin to resume conversation with him. He turned into a quiet lane, the stony surface of which offered some guarantee against the noise and nuisance of motor traffic which it is now so hard to escape within the confines of any civilized land. He felt that he needed an opportunity of reviewing the various knowledge which he had gained during the day, and he knew from past experience that he could do this best while